Amos 1:15

And their king shall go into captivity, he and his princes together, saith the LORD.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(15) Their king.—Not as Syrian and Vulg. read the original, Malcam or Milcom, i.e., Moloch. E.V. is supported by LXX., Targ., and context of the passage. So far we find the prophet denouncing the sin which trifles with blood, covenants, and ancient agreements, and recognising the responsibilities of race; but closer inspection shows in this, and in Amos 2, that the prophet condemns all violations of those natural laws and rights of which he regards Jehovah as custodian and executor.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

1:18-21 There shall be abundant Divine influences, and the gospel will spread speedily into the remotest corners of the earth. These events are predicted under significant emblems; there is a day coming, when every thing amiss shall be amended. The fountain of this plenty is in the house of God, whence the streams take rise. Christ is this Fountain; his sufferings, merit, and grace, cleanse, refresh, and make fruitful. Gospel grace, flowing from Christ, shall reach to the Gentile world, to the most remote regions, and make them abound in fruits of righteousness; and from the house of the Lord above, from his heavenly temple, flows all the good we daily taste, and hope to enjoy eternally.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

And their king - The king was commonly, in those nations, the center of their energy. When "he and his princes" were "gone into captivity," there was no one to make head against the conqueror, and renew revolts. Hence, as a first step in the subdual, the reigning head and those who shared his counsels were removed. Ammon then, savage as it was in act, was no ill-organized horde. On the contrary, barren and waste as all that country now is, it must once have been highly cultivated by a settled and laborious people. The abundance of its ruins attests the industry and habits of the population. "The whole of the country," says Burckhardt , "must have been extremely well cultivated, to have afforded subsistence to the inhabitants of so many towns." "The low hills are, for the most part, crowned with ruins." Of the "thirty ruined or deserted places, which including Amman," have been even lately "counted east of Assalt" (the village which probably represents Ramoth-Gilead, "about 16 miles west of Philadelphia that is, Amman) several are in Ammonitis. Little as the country has been explored, ruins of large and important towns have been found south-southeast. and south of Amman .

Two hours southeast of Amman, Buckingham relates , "an elevation opened a new view before us, in the same direction. On a little lower level, was a still more extensive track of cultivated plain than that even which we had already passed - Throughout its whole extent were seen ruined towns in every direction, both before, behind, and on each side of us; generally seated on small eminences; all at a short distance from each other; and all, as far as we had yet seen, bearing evident marks of former opulency and consideration. There was not a tree in sight as far as the eye could reach; but my guide, who had been over every part of it, assured me that the whole of the plain was covered with the finest soil, and capable of being made the most productive grain-land in the world - For a space of more than thirty miles there did not appear to me a single interruption of hill, rock or wood, to impede immediate tillage.

The great plain of Esdraelon, so justly celebrated for its extent and fertility, is inferior in both to this plain of Belkah. Like Esdraelon, it appears to have been once the seat of an active and numerous population; but in the former the monuments of the dead only remain, while here the habitations of the living are equally mingled with the tombs of the departed, all thickly strewn over every part of the soil from which they drew their sustenance." Nor does the crown, of a "talent of gold weight, with precious stones" 2 Samuel 12:30, belong to an uncivilized people. Such hordes too depend on the will and guidance of their single Skeikh or head. This was a hereditary kingdom 2 Samuel 10:1. The kings of Ammon had their constitutional advisers. These were they who gave the evil and destructive counsel to insult the ambassadors of David. Evil kings have evermore evil counselors. It is ever the curse of such kings to have their own evil, reflected, anticipated, fomented, enacted by bad advisers around them. "Hand in hand the wicked shall not be unpunished" Proverbs 11:21. They link together, but to drag one another into a common destruction. Together they had counseled against God; "king and princes together," they should go into captivity.

There is also doubtless, in the word Malcham, a subordinate allusion to the god whom they worshiped under the title Molech or Malchom. Certainly Jeremiah "seems" so to have understood it. For, having said of Moab, "Chemosh shall go into captivity, his priests and his princes together" Jeremiah 48:7, he says as to Ammon, in the self-same formula and almost in the words of Amos ; "Malcham shall go into captivity, his priests and his princes together." Zephaniah ZEphesians 1:5 also speaks of the idol under the same name Malcham, "their king." Yet since Ammon had kings before this time, and just before their subdual by Nebuchadnezzar, and king Baalis Jeremiah 40:14 was a murderer, it is hardly likely that Jeremiah too should not have included him in the sentence of his people, of whose sins he was a mainspring. Probably, then, Amos and Jeremiah foretell, in a comprehensive way, the powerlessness of all their stays, human and idolatrous. All in which they trusted should not only fail them, but should be carried captive from them.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

15. their king … princes—or else, "their Molech (the idol of Ammon) and his priests" [Grotius and Septuagint]. Isa 43:28 so uses "princes" for "priests." So Am 5:26, "your Molech"; and Jer 49:3, Margin. English Version, however, is perhaps preferable both here and in Jer 49:3; see on [1138]Jer 49:3.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Their king; or Milchore, or Moloch, the idol of the Ammonites, so it signifieth, as well as king. I suppose the prophet may intend both, their god as well as their king shall be carried captive, as was customary with conquerors, 1 Samuel 5:2 Isaiah 46:2.

He: this repeats and confirms the threat, whether it refer to the idol or the king.

His princes; either nobles and ministers of state, who attend and serve the king, or the priests and ministers of the idol; here both may be included, and the utter overthrow of their affairs in religion and state be signified and foretold.

Saith the Lord: this, as elsewhere, doth ratify and insure all; it shall so be, for God hath spoken it.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And their king shall go into captivity,.... Not only the common people that are left of the sword shall be carried captive, but their king also. This was, Baalis their last king, who was accessary to the murder of Gedaliah, Jeremiah 40:14; whom the king of Babylon had set over the remnant of the Jews left in Judea; which might provoke him to send Nebuzaradan his general against him, who put his country to fire and sword, destroyed his chief city Rabbah, and carried him and his nobles into captivity. Some understand this of Milchom, or Mo, the god of the children of Ammon, who should be so far from saving them, that he himself should be taken and carried off; it being usual with the conquerors to carry away with them the gods of the nations they conquered; see Jeremiah 48:7. So Ptolemy Euergetes king of Egypt, having conquered Callinicus king of Syria, carried captive into Egypt the gods he then took, Daniel 11:8; and it was usual with the Romans to carry the gods of the nations captive which they conquered, and to carry them in their triumphs as such; so Marcellus was blamed for rendering the city of Rome envied and hated by other nations, because not men only, but the gods also, were carried in pomp as captives: and of Paulus Aemylius it is said, that the first day of his triumph was scarce sufficient for the passing along of the captive statues, pictures, and colosses, which were drawn on two hundred and fifty chariots (k):

he and his princes together, saith the Lord: which is repeated, and especially the last words added, for the confirmation of it. The Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic versions, read, "their priests and their princes", as in Jeremiah 49:3. This was fulfilled five years after the destruction of Jerusalem, as Josephus (l) relates.

(k) Vid. Plutarch. in Vita Marcelli & Aemylii. (l) Antiqu. l. 10. c. 9. sect. 7. Vid. Judith i. 12.

Geneva Study Bible

And their king shall go into captivity, he and his princes together, saith the LORD.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

15. And their king shall go into captivity, &c.] into exile (Amos 1:5). The verse is borrowed by Jeremiah, with slight changes, in his prophecy against the Ammonites (Jeremiah 49:3), “For their king shall go into exile, his priests and his princes together”—where the addition of ‘priests’ makes it probable that for malcâm ‘their king,’ we should read, with most of the ancient versions, Milcom, the name of the national God of the Ammonites (1 Kings 11:5, &c.).

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 15. - Their king; Septuagint, οἱ βασιλεῖς αὐτῆς. So Keil, Trochon, and others consider that the King of the Ammonites is meant. The Vulgate, with Aquila, Symmachus, the Syriac, and Jerome, retrains the word Melchous, or Melcham, which is the same as Molech, their god. This interpretation is favoured by passages in Jeremiah, of which one is evidently quoted from Amos, "For Malcam shall go into captivity, his priests and his princes together" (Jeremiah 49:3); and the other (Jeremiah 48:7) is similar, with the substitution of "Chemosh," the god of Moab, for "Maleam." That the localized deity should share the fortunes of his worshippers is quite in accordance with the ideas of the time (comp. Isaiah 46:1, 2). Probably Amos meant to include both notions - their "Malcam," whether king or god. should be carried into captivity, accompanied by the princes, all the chiefs, military and sacerdotal, so that no one should he left to head a future revolt.



Amos 1:15

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Ammon. - Amos 1:13. "Thus saith Jehovah: For three transgressions of the sons of Ammon, and for four, I shall not reverse it, because they have ripped up the pregnant women of Gilead, to widen their border, Amos 1:14. I kindle fire in the wall of Rabbah, and it will devour its palaces, with the war-cry on the day of slaughter, in the storm on the day of the tempest. Amos 1:15. And their king shall go into captivity, he and his princes all at once, saith Jehovah." The occasion on which the Ammonites were guilty of such cruelty towards the Israelites as is here condemned, is not recorded in the historical books of the Old Testament; possibly during the wars of Hazael with Israel, when they availed themselves of the opportunity to widen their territory by conquering back the land which had been wrested from them by Sihon king of the Amorites, and was then taken possession of by the Israelites, when he was overcome by them, - a thing which they had attempted once before in the time of Jephthah the judge (Judges 11:12.). We may see from Jeremiah 49:1. that they had taken possession of the territory of the tribe of Gad, which lay nearest to them, though probably not till after the carrying away of the tribes beyond Jordan by the Assyrians (2 Kings 15:29). The ripping up of the women with child (see at 2 Kings 8:12) is singled out as the climax of the cruelties which the Ammonites inflicted upon the Israelites during the war. As a punishment for this, their capital was to be burned, and the king, with the princes, to wander into exile, and consequently their kingdom was to be destroyed. Rabbâh, i.e., the great one, is the abbreviated name of the capital; Rabbah of the children of Ammon, which has been preserved in the ruins of Aurân (see at Deuteronomy 3:11). The threat is sharpened by the clause בּתרוּעה וגו, at the war-cry on the field of battle, i.e., an actual fact, when the enemy shall take the city by storm. בּסער וגו is a figurative expression applied to the storming of a city carried by assault, like בּסוּפה in Numbers 21:14. The reading מלכּם, "their (the Ammonites') king," is confirmed by the lxx and the Chaldee, and required by ושׂריו (cf. Amos 2:3), whereas Μαλχόμ, Melchom, which is found in Aq., Symm., Jerome, and the Syriac, rests upon a false interpretation.